Democrat Leslie Nuss hopes to unseat incumbent Republican Ed Charbonneau, who has served in the Indiana Senate representing District 5 since 2007.
Nuss said the Statehouse needs more moms and wives like her so their voices can be heard. “Women have suffered sexism and misogyny and have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good,” she said.
Indiana’s restrictive abortion law is another reason Nuss is running. When she had a miscarriage, she needed to have an emergency D&C procedure to get out the remaining tissue. “I would have left behind two kids with no mother” if she had died from being denied that care under Indiana’s current abortion law, she said.
“If there’s a supermajority, the Republicans don’t even have to listen to the Democrats,” Nuss said, and she wants to make sure everyone’s concerns are heard. “I would like to see if I could make some progress in bipartisanship. It seems to me it’s sorely lacking,” Nuss said.
Charbonneau listed his experience in the Senate, including his former chairmanship of the environmental committee and now public health as a reason to vote for him. Before serving in the Senate, he retired from U.S. Steel.
When he took over as head of the Northwest Indiana Forum, “my first day on the job they said, ‘Oh, we forgot to tell you we don’t have enough money to pay the employees come Friday,’ so I’ve been dealing with a lot of tough real-world situations.” When he took over as CEO of Methodist Hospitals, the situation was even worse, but it has been turned around, he said.
Last year, Charbonneau sponsored legislation that made a major investment in healthcare in Indiana – $75 million in 2024 and $150 million in 2025. “It’s much bigger than people realize, and it was a tough one to get passed, but eventually it was passed pretty overwhelmingly,” he said.
That legislation allowed counties to opt in or out each year for a significant amount of state funding for their health departments. “The first year, we had 86 of the 92 counties opt in, and for the second year all 92 counties are involved,” he said.
The idea is to get people to live healthier lives – including not smoking, addressing obesity and other issues – to bring down the exorbitant cost of healthcare.
“I’d like to get Indiana more notice for amazing things and not be at the bottom of some lists we shouldn’t be on,” Nuss said. “I’ve read Indiana has the seventh highest health care costs in the country. That’s ridiculous.” Indiana has the third-highest maternal mortality rate, and its waterways and air are highly polluted, she said. “These are things we should work on.”
Next year is a budget year for Indiana, with the General Assembly passing a biennial budget. It’s going to be tough with the state discovering it was close to $1 billion short in Medicaid funding, Charbonneau said.
“I would like to just see what I could do to help families who have children with special needs,” Nuss said. She listed situations where parents and grandparents face a tough time helping these children.
In terms of the budget, funding public schools and increasing teacher pay is a big priority for her. “They need for the public schools to be strong,” she said.
Nuss does a weekly music program at SELF school in Valparaiso for kids with special needs. “More kids are being diagnosed with disabilities, autism, every day,” she said.
“People really do need to just stop attacking public schools. That’s just ridiculous,” she said, especially in District 5, where small towns often don’t have an alternative to public schools. “If you want the small towns in Indiana to thrive and not die, we need to stop it. We need to just put on our big girl pants and big boy pants and stop acting like children.”
Charbonneau notes providing childcare is a big problem in Indiana that needs to be addressed. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. We don’t have enough childcare centers and we don’t have enough childcare workers.”
Raising pay for childcare workers would be hard for parents, who could be faced with having to cut back on other spending or get a second job. The state might need to get involved to meet workforce needs, he said. “We don’t want to get into the childcare business, so it will be a tough nut to crack.”
“These people who think politics doesn’t affect them, they’re naïve,” Nuss said. “Politics affects every single aspect of your life, from what kind of food you eat and whether you have clean water to drink and who you can marry and regulations that maybe change zoning so you can have an affordable place to live.”
“I’m the kind of person who rolls up my sleeves and gets to work. That’s what we need,” she said. “People need to stop voting against their best interests. There’s a proverb that the trees kept voting for the axe because its handle was made of wood. Eventually, you get cut down too.”
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
